The use of an intermediate transfer member in electrostatic imaging is well known in the art.
Various types of intermediate transfer members are known and are described, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,862,848, 4,684,238, 4,690,539 and 4,531,825.
Belt-type intermediate transfer members for use in electrophotography are known in the art and are described, inter alia, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,893,761, 4,684,238 and 4,690,539.
The use of intermediate transfer members is well known in the printing art. In offset printing an image formed of a viscous ink is transferred from a drum to a second drum prior to transfer to the final substrate.
Conventional color electrostatic printers print three or four, partly transparent, color, generally half-tone, separations in cyan, magenta, yellow and (optionally) black to form a single full color image. The color density of these single color prints must be carefully controlled to produce the correct color in the final image.
An observer viewing an image printed on paper actually sees a color which is the result of light incident on the image, which passes through the image, is reflected from the paper and passes through the image again before being seen by the viewer. The light which the observer sees is thus filtered twice by the image. If the same conditions are used for printing on transparencies the colors appear to be washed out, i.e., they have a lower saturation than the same print on paper. This reduced saturation is caused by the fact that for transparencies light passes through the printed image only once before being viewed.